Certain products and by-products of naturally-occurring metabolic processes in cells have utility in a wide array of industries, including the food, feed, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries. These molecules, collectively termed ‘fine chemicals’, also include lipids and fatty acids whereof one representative class of molecules is polyunsaturated fatty acids. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (=PUFAs) are added for example to infant formulas to create a higher nutrition value of such formulas. PUFAs have for example a positive influence on the cholesterol level of the blood in humans and therefore are useful in the protection against heart diseases. Fine chemicals and polyunsaturated fatty acids (=PUFAs) can be isolated from animal sources such as for example fish or produced with microorganisms through the large-scale fermentation of microorganisms developed to produce and accumulate or secrete large quantities of one or more desired molecules.
Particularly useful microorganisms for the production of PUFAs are microorganisms such as the algae Isochrysis galbana, Phaedactylum tricornutum or Crypthecodinium species, ciliates like Stylonychia or Colpidium, fungi like Mortierella, Entomophthora, Mucor or Thrausto-/Schizochytrium species. Through strain selection, a number of mutant strains of the respective microorganisms have been developed which produce an array of desirable compounds including PUFAs. However, selection of strains improved for the production of a particular molecule is a time-consuming and difficult process.
Alternatively the production of fine chemicals can be most conveniently performed via the large scale production of plants developed to produce aforementioned PUFAs. Particularly well suited plants for this purpose are oilseed plants containing high amounts of lipid compounds such as rapeseed, canola, linseed, soybean, sunflower, borage and evening primrose. But also other crop plants containing oils or lipids and fatty acids are well suited as mentioned in the detailed description of this invention. Through conventional breeding, a number of mutant plants have been developed which produce an array of desirable lipids and fatty acids, cofactors and enzymes. However, selection of new plant cultivars bred for the production of a particular molecule is a time-consuming and difficult process or even impossible if the compound does not naturally occur in the respective oil crop as in the case of C20 and higher carbon chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.